The Devil's Trail

by Robert J Conley

  He roared out even louder than before and jerked that there ax aloose. I was up on my feet by then, and I had runned back into a corner a the room. He turned and looked at me. I leveled my Colt at him and cocked it.

  “Drop that ax,” I said, “or I’ll kill you.”

  “I seen her first,” he said. “She’s mine.”

  I thunk about giving him another warning, but then I realized that I had done shot one hole in his chest, and that hadn’t made no impression on him. I figgered warnings would have about as much effect on him as they would on some wild animal. Then I wondered just how many bullets would it take to slow this big, ugly son of a bitch down some. I shot him again, jut a couple a inches from where I had shot him before. He stopped and looked down at it again, and then he roared again, and he come at me. I run to the next corner a the room, and I decided that weren’t doing no good a-shooting him in the chest. I decided to shoot his head, but just as I had made that decision, he flung that damn ax like as if it were a little ole throwing ax, and when I seed that thing a-coming at me, I had to duck, and that throwed off my shot. I hit him low betwixt the legs. Oh lordy, but he did howl.

  The ax stuck in the wall just above my head. The monster was a-bent over a-holding his balls or whatever was left of them with both his hands, and blood was a-running all through his fingers. He was a-looking up at me with a real astonished kinda look on his face. Well, there weren’t nothing else for it. I couldn’t leave a man in that kinda shape. It woulda been too cruel, so I shot him once more, this time right betwixt the eyes, and this time he dropped over dead on his face.

  I tell you what, though. I didn’t know whether to believe it or not, him being dead. I had just about begun to think that I had final run acrost a man what couldn’t be shot dead. I helt my Colt ready, and I walked over to him real slow and easy. I got close enough to reach out and toe him, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I was askeert that he would come alive again and reach out and grab me. He never moved, though, and final I did reach out and toe him. He still didn’t move none. I toed him harder. He was dead, all right. I seed enough dead men to know one. Well, I walked over to a chair what was setting against the wall, and I dropped down in it to ketch my breath and to just general try to get over what I had just went through.

  After I had tuck me a few deep breaths, it come back to me what I was in there for in the first place, and then I recollected what the monster had said to me when he said that he seed her first. So there must be a woman in there somewhere. I guessed that it coulda been one a the whores from the saloon, but I hoped that it would be Doc, and I hoped even more that he had only just recent saw her and hadn’t got a chance to get to her yet before I come up on him like I done. I stood up and headed for that back room again, and even though I knowed the big son of a bitch was dead, I stepped wide around him.

  I looked all around in that back room, and I didn’t see no sign a life. All it was in there was big slabs a meat a-hanging from the ceiling. I asked myself what could that bastard a meant by what he had said. I holstered my Colt again. I couldn’t see no sign a no danger. Then I just stood there a-puzzling over the situation. I decided to check over that whole building real keerful and even turn over ever’ desk and table and ever’thing what a human person might could get underneath and hide, and so I walked back into the front and main room and commenced into doing just that. I turned one table over real deliberate onto the body a that human monster in there. I didn’t find nothing nor no one.

  I went to opening drawers for some reason. I knowed they wouldn’t be no one inside a them, but anyhow I did find some money, and I tuck it and stuffed it into my pockets. They was a side room, and I went in there and rummaged all over it, but I still didn’t have no luck. Well, that only left that back room with all the meat in it, and a course that had been the room what the monster had been so vicious about defending for hisself. I mighta thunk that he had just been a-trying to hoard all that meat but ’cept for what he had said that he had seed her first. Well, I went back in there, and whenever I stepped through that door, I noticed that my footstep on the floor had a different sound to it from what it had in that front room. I stepped back acrost and stomped on the floor. Then I stepped acrost again and stomped again. It most definite had a different sound to it.

  I be damned, I said to my own self, but I think there’s a basement underneath this here. I went to walking around the room again a-looking at the floor, and then sure ’nough, back against the back wall, I come onto a trap door. It had a iron ring attached to it for a pull handle, and I tuck holt and pulled, but that there trap was shut tight. I knocked on it. Then I called out, “Is someone down there?” I didn’t get no answer. “Hey,” I hollered in my louder voice, “this here is Kid Parmlee. Is they anyone down there alive?” They was a pause, and then I heared, “Kid?” It were a little voice, soft and kindly skeered sounding.

  “Yeah,” I called out. “It’s me. Kid Parmlee. Is that you, Doc?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “There ain’t no one alive up here but me.”

  Then I heared some scratching and scraping just underneath me, and then that there trap door was raised up just a little like as if someone down there was a-pushing on it. I grabbed onto the iron ring and pulled, and I throwed that door back on the floor, and be damned if Doc didn’t poke her pretty head outa that hole.

  “Kid,” she said. “God, I’m glad to see you.”

  She reached up at me, and I tuck holt a her and helped her up outa there. Whenever she was out and standing on the floor there in front a me, she throwed her both arms around me and helt me as tight as I’ve ever been helt. And I seed that she was a-trembling.

  “Ever’thing’s all right now, Doc,” I said.

  “I was so frightened,” she said. “That man—”

  “He’s dead. Did he get to you?”

  “No. I saw him coming and went down in the basement. There’s a bar down there to latch the door from below. He banged at the door and pulled at it. Then he said he was going to chop his way through.”

  “I reckon that’s about when I come up,” I said. “He come at me with a ax.”

  “You came just in time. I don’t know what would have happened if—”

  “Hey. Don’t even think about it. It never happened, and it ain’t a-going to. Doc, I feel real bad. I never meant to ride outa here and leave you like I done. I ain’t got no excuse neither ’cept only I had me three outlaws along with me, and I had to deal with them. I come back soon as I could.”

  “You came back in time,” she said. “That’s all that counts. But—what happened here?”

  “Let’s get us away from here, and I’ll tell you all about it,” I said, and I tuck her by the hand and led her on out the building through the front door and outside to where Ole Horse was a-waiting. When he seed me, he give a snort as if to say that it was about time I come out to let him know ever’ thing was all right. I started to put Doc up on Ole Horse, but then I had me a thought.

  “Say,” I said, “I bet you’re hungry.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I am.”

  Well, I had me some trail food, you know, but I thunk about all that meat in that back room, and so I told Doc and Ole Horse to wait just a minute, and I went back inside a there and sliced off a good chunk a beef. I found me something to wrap it up in, and then I went back out. I put Doc in the saddle, and I clumb on behind. Then I rid us out away from that there ugly town what I had give back to the Devil, and I found us a nice camping spot beside a pretty little stream. I built up a little fire and cooked us up a good meal and boiled some coffee, and we et and drunk coffee and just kindly relaxed a bit. I rolled a cigareet, and Doc surprised me and asked for one for her own self. I fixed her one, and the both of us set and smoked. Ole Horse was a doing fine, grazing on nice green grass and drinking outa that clear, running stream.

  Well, I final went and told Doc the whole entire story. I admitted to her that I hadn’t never be
en no outlaw, and I told her how me and my temporary pardner ole Cherry had gone into that there Devil Place a-pretending to be outlaws in order to get back that stole Fosterville bank money, but only in order to get it back, we’d had to pretend to rob the stagecoach for ole Wheeler. Then Cherry had gone and turned real outlaw on me. I told her the whole thing, all the details, and wound it all up telling how I had got all the money back. I had done turned the payroll back to the stage line and got them three locked up, and now all I had to do was to just ride all the way back to Fosterville and return the bank money and get my reeward from the bank. That was all.

  “And I got me some friends in Fosterville,” I said. “The sheriff there, ole Jim Chastain, is a good friend a mine, and the ole banker, he’ll like me real good whenever I fetch him back his money. Then there’s ole Red, and—well, anyhow, I got me some good friends over there. I reckon we could set you up in doctoring in that town if you’d a mind. They’d go to you if I was to tell them to. What do you say?”

  She smiled at me real sweet. “It’s worth a try, Kid,” she said, “and besides, I don’t have anyplace else to go.”

  Well, it being kindly late in the day by then, we spent the night at that there little cozy camp, and we did have us a good time with her a-showing me just how glad she was to see me and all. And in spite a all a my adventures with wild women, I come to believe that I was just about to fall in love again. I admit to feeling a little bit guilty on accounta ole Red, but I just couldn’t help myself. Doc was a fine woman.

  The next morning we cleaned up the camp site and headed out towards the west with the both of us a-riding on Ole Horse. I told him I was sorry about that, and I moved us along real slow and easy so as to not wear him out. We stopped to rest now and then, too. It tuck us two days to get back over to the stagecoach road. We camped another night there, and then I turned us south towards the clostest town what was End a the Line. I figgered we could get us a good night’s sleep in a real hotel and some real good meals and another horse, and then we could move on towards Fosterville. It was around noon by the time we got to it.

  Well, the first thing I done, seeing as how Ole Horse had worked extry hard for me, was to ride right straight to the stable, and I told that stable man to treat Ole Horse the best way he knowed how. Then me and Doc went to walking down the main street a the town. We went into the first eating place we seed, and I bought us both the best steak dinner what they had to offer, and it was good, too. Whenever we had et our fill and drunk all the coffee we wanted, we went back out and found us a hotel. We was lucky to get a room on accounta that little town was a-plenty busy.

  But I got us a room all right, and I ordered up a bath for the doc, and whenever she got into it, I couldn’t hardly pull myself away from her, but I did. I asked her what size a clothes she wore, and I went out and bought her all kinds a new stuff, pretty dresses and underthings, and even shoes and boots and a new set a riding clothes. I told that feller in the store to wrap them all up and send them over to the hotel. Then I went to the stable and found a fine little filly horse for sale, and I bought it and a saddle for Doc. I left it there in the stable, though, with Ole Horse. Then I bought myself a bottle a whiskey and went back to the hotel room. Doc was still a soaking in the tub. She sure made a pretty picture.

  I poured myself a whiskey, and Doc surprised me again by asking for some for herself, and I poured her a glass and give it to her. We was sipping whiskey, and she was a-soaking whenever someone knocked on the door. I went over and opened it just a crack, and it was a kid a-delivering all that stuff for Doc, so I made him hand it through the crack a the door one piece at a time, and I stacked all a them boxes and bundles on the bed. I sent that kid away with a dollar, and I shut the door and latched it again.

  “What’s all that?” Doc asked.

  I went to opening it all up and showing it to her, and it sure did make her happy.

  “Kid,” she said, “let’s go out and walk around the town.”

  I guess she wanted to show herself off in her new clothes. Women is like that. Well, a part a me didn’t want her a-putting on no clothes, but another part a me was real proud a what I had did for her and wanted to see her all dressed up and even wanted to parade around with her like that, so I said, “All right.” She come outa that tub and I helped her to dry off all a her loveliness, and then we picked out some stuff, and she got all dressed up. She studied herself in the mirrer some, and she went and told me what a fine job I had did in buying tasteful ladies’ clothes for her, and she did look fine, I can tell you. ’Course, the man in the store had helped me to pick out all the right stuff.

  Anyhow, we went on out, and we was a-strolling up and down the main street a-showing her off to ever’one, and I got to feeling like as if I might oughta have tuck me a bath and put on some new clothes too, but then, the way I was a-looking, all it done was it just made her look all that much better. I figgered that folks was a-looking at us and saying things like how in the hell did that scruffy little shit get hisself that there fine-looking woman on his arm? So I was kindly puffed up my own self. Yes sir.

  I noticed the jailhouse while we was a-walking along, and it come to me that ole Dick Cherry and them two dumb Duttons was likely in there a-hating my guts. I figgered that it was still too soon for them to have been give a trial. I wondered how many years in prison they would get for robbing that payroll and if I would ever run into any of them again anywhere along the road in this here life. Hell, I hoped the law would lock them up and then just forget about them and let them rot away in some dungeon somewheres in the damn desert.

  Anyhow, we strolled on past the jailhouse, and Doc, she musta been thinking the same thing what I had been a-thinking just a bit before about my own clothes, on accounta she said, “Look, Kid, there’s a store with men’s clothes. Let’s go inside and find you a new suit.”

  I puffed myself up some and said, “Okay.”

  The store was acrost the street from where we was at, and we stepped down off a the board sidewalk to go over there, and then I seed someone acrost the street point right at me, and he yelled, “There he is right there.”

  About six men gethered around him then, and they all come at me. I kindly shoved ole Doc away from me, and I braced myself for a fight. I didn’t have no idee what it was all about neither.

  “Kid, what—”

  “Just stay outa the way, sweetness,” I said. “I don’t want you a-getting hurt.”

  Chapter 19

  The only thing I could think of was how one a them Duttons had tried to tell that there stage driver that I had helped them rob that payroll, which a course was true enough, but only I had meant all along to give it back, what I had did all right, and they hadn’t believed him none, but only now with them six men a-coming at me, I thunk, maybe them three had gone to telling that again and someone had decided to believe them after all.

  But a course, I didn’t have much time for thinking just then. I seed that none a them fellers had their guns pulled out, but then they had me way outnumbered, so I was a-thinking maybe I had ought to pull my shooter to defend myself, but then they was all around me all of a sudden, more than just them six. Some others had come up beside a me and some behind me even, and they was a-slapping me on the back and ever’one was a-talking so I couldn’t tell what no one was a-saying, but they was all a-smiling, too. I was sorta astonished, you might say, but then I kindly relaxed whenever I seed that they never meant me no harm.

  Well, it come clear final that I was some kinda hero in that there End a the Line, and things kindly calmed down a bit slowly, and the crowd come to be about four main guys what said they wanted to buy me a drink at the saloon, but I told them that I was in the company of a fine lady, and so they said we could go to a fancy resteerant instead.

  “We’ve done et,” I told them.

  “We can get drinks there,” one a the men said. He was a middle-aged feller with a fancy suit on. Well, I asked Doc, and she said okay. I think she w
as kindly curious about me getting all a that attention from them big-shot-looking fellers. Well, we walked to the fancy place they was a-talking about, and it really was, too. I hadn’t never seed a place so fancy just for eating and drinking in, and all that in that little ole End a the Line place.

  We got in there and all set down at a round table, and that one feller ordered up a bottle a champagnee, but he seed right quick that I didn’t take to it, so he ordered me a whiskey. Doc tuck to that bubbly stuff, though, so I was glad that he had ordered it.

  “What’s this all about?” I said.

  “Well, Mr. Parmlee—”

  “Don’t call me that,” I said. “Just call me Kid. Ever’one does.”

  “All right, Kid. My name is Stratton. These men are my colleagues. Mr. Long, Mr. Bowman and Mr. Polk. We work for the railroad. That payroll you saved is ours, and you got it back to us in the nick of time. Our workers were just about to walk out on us. If that had happened, we’d be in big trouble. We owe you a lot, and we intend to pay. In fact, if you’ll hang around here for a few minutes with us, Mr. Polk here will run over to the bank and draw out the money for your reward.”

  “Well, I reckon we can afford to set here a spell,” I said. I give Doc a look. “What do you say to that, darlin’?”

  Doc smiled real sweet. “I think we have the time,” she said.